Class Taken: Music History 68: “The Beatles”

Overall Professor Upton seemed to be a good person. She was very enthusiastic coming into lecture and seemed to have a real passion and obsession for The Beatles (especially Paul). Although she did come across a few technical difficulties (every lecture) – they weren't all her fault and still delivered a great lecture overall. She plays a lot of songs in class and shows really cool and interesting video clips you wouldn't see anywhere else. Although she did take a bit too much time reviewing what was going to happen in a video or what we were going to hear in a song she overall won me over and I loved the entire presentation.

This class is solely based off of your Teaching Assistant. I had Gillian Gower; she was a bit too harsh on grading at times but knew her stuff and had great section presentations. Overall Gillian did respond promptly to emails and tried to help her 60 students with the confusing paper.

Now here is what you really want to know. Class Breakdown:

The class is composed of weekly lectures Mondays & Wednesdays with discussion on Fridays. Discussion is mandatory and attendance is taken. TA’s review over what the professor didn't have enough time to discuss in lecture. Discussion counts as your “Professionalism” grade which is 10% of your grade.

You have weekly online forum posts. The professor posts a question – typically on Friday and you have to respond to the question before Tuesday at 5pm. You are then to comment on a peers post before Thursday at 5pm. This counts as 25% of your grade and is graded on a pass/fail scale. So basically JUST DO IT! They are fairly easy and could possibly be done 20 minutes before the due time.

The Midterm consisted of 4 listening samples, 4 multiple choice short answer questions and an extra credit question (10 points each with EC being up to 5 pts.) The midterm is graded solely on your TA. My TA graded on the harsher side as she expected us to basically write things that weren't asked in the prompts. For the listening samples you have to include The Artist, Album, Year and write 2 sentences for each.

You have a 5 page music paper to write. You are to choose a song by The Beatles (of course) and write about the experience of the composer, performer and listener. Talk to your TA about the format and what they are expecting. To be honest the guidelines do not help much. Just talk to your TA. This is graded on a 0-100 pt scale and no explanation of your grade is given.

The Final Exam is composed of 5 listening samples (5 pts. each), 5 short answer responses (5 pts. each) and 2 essays (25 pts. each with a 3-4 page length requirement). She gives you 5 essay questions before hand and picks 2. She chose the question on Paul McCartney as well as the one on how have the Beatles music making techniques changed over the years. Both prompts sucked and you have to basically bull-crap your way through the 3-4 page minimum for both. For the short answers you are expected to write a paragraph and the listening samples is the identification of the song alongside a paragraph response for each.

Actual breakdown:
Professionalism/Section: 10%
Midterm: 15%
Online Writing: 25%
Paper: 25%
Final Exam: 25%

*There are 2 required books for the class - I didn't read them and lots of my friends in the class didn't either. Although, you do use the Gould book for the paper!!*

I ended up getting a B in the class. I am happy with it seeing as though I never read and I missed quite a few lectures! Just glad the class is over. I came in not knowing so much about The Beatles and left a fan although sick of them the day of the final.

Elizabeth Upton is a great professor, very enthusiastic but can get distracted very very easily. I remember a girl brought her dog to class one day, the professor saw it and went on to rant and compare the dog to Paul McCartney for about 5 minutes (nuts!). Overall a great class that I would recommend to anyone.

Music history 68 (Beatles)
easy class. interesting subject matter. boring professor.
You do not need to go to lecture to do well in this class. one of my friends probably went to a fourth of the lectures and got an A in the class. I went to most lectures however because i was very interested in the subject. Discussions are mandatory and the TA's grading varies significantly from one to the other. Don't take this class with Mikush, because he is the hardest grader (and openly admits it).

I took Professor Upton's Music History 68 course in the Winter 2012 quarter, and contrary to these reviews, I thought she was a fantastic professor! I was personally raised to be a huge fan of The Beatles and I learned countless things about the band that I hadn't known before. She does teach very closely to the Beatles Anthology, and you could learn much of the gist of the course by watching it and paying close attention, but I actually really enjoyed going to her lectures. She was often running late, or when she wasn't, the technology in the auditorium was acting up and class would start late anyway (the music building is notorious for this) but she was a great lecturer for what it was worth and even though people might find her to be somewhat of a ditz, I thought her personality was charming and breath of fresh air from the typical arrogant professors. She talked to us like we were human, and I appreciate that. Her exams were particularly easy. If you can remember dates and titles, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. In short, you won't find a professor as passionate or knowledgeable of the music of The Beatles as Upton is, and it's certainly not a class you'll ever forget. I would 100% recommend this class to anyone who enjoys classic rock!

I took MUS HIST 68- Beatles
Professor Upton is WONDERFUL! I came into this class knowing not even the names of the Beatles and came out obsessed. This class is easily one of my favorites and is not hard at all. Her class is very straightforward and she's a fun professor. She's always excited to come to class-which makes it fun for the students as well! I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants a easy and fun fulfillment of a GE requirement.

I took Music History 68 with Professor Upton, that was the Beatles class. I really, really enjoyed it. I loved learning more about the Beatles and I thought her lectures, for the most part, were really interesting. She did go off on some really strange and completely irrelevant tangents (like an hour on John Cage and talking about like nineteenth century folk music), but the rest of the lecture time made up for it. She showed us all of these cool clips I wouldn't have seen otherwise. I came into this class a mild fan of the Beatles and came out sort of obsessed, so I think the class was awesome. As for the class breakdown, there were two online posts every week, one musical report type paper, one real paper, and then a midterm and a final. Most of these things were just like an A for effort. They did take attendance during discussion though, which sucked for some people. People say the reading for this class wasn't necessary, but I did the reading as I found it really interesting and I did think it helped me absorb the knowledge better. Overall, this class was not only really easy (I got an A+), but it was also just totally awesome.

I wrote the comment below, I just forgot to specify that I took MUSIC HIST 68 - BEATLES

"Professor Upton sucks. She has potential to be a good professor, but she goes off on random information rather often. I took the class because I was genuinely interested in learning, but Upton would consistently show up late and let breaks run too long. The amount of time we spent "learning" was not proportional to the amount of money I pay UCLA to take a 5 unit class. She could have done a lot better. I think you will enjoy the class if you take it. Try to take it with a different professor though. That said, if all you want is a gpa booster, Upton is an incredibly easy professor. I didn't read the book, nor did I study more than 3 hours for either the midterm or final, and I still received an A+ in the class. But seriously, I really dislike Upton. I wish I took it with a professor who didn't act like she was a 10 year old girl."

Professor Upton sucks. She has potential to be a good professor, but she goes off on random information rather often. I took the class because I was genuinely interested in learning, but Upton would consistently show up late and let breaks run too long. The amount of time we spent "learning" was not proportional to the amount of money I pay UCLA to take a 5 unit class. She could have done a lot better. I think you will enjoy the class if you take it. Try to take it with a different professor though. That said, if all you want is a gpa booster, Upton is an incredibly easy professor. I didn't read the book, nor did I study more than 3 hours for either the midterm or final, and I still received an A+ in the class. But seriously, I really dislike Upton. I wish I took it with a professor who didn't act like she was a 10 year old girl.

Music History 68: The Beatles

This class was absolutely amazing, and professor Upton was a wonderful lecturer. This class was extremely easy, the "textbook" was a best selling novel about the Beatles, and the midterm and final were very straight forward. I enjoyed attending these lectures because professor Upton is passionate about the Beatles, and incorporates songs and videos into every lecture! I cannot stress enough how fun and easy this class is! If you love the Beatles, take it! If you want to learn more about them, take it! You will not be disappointed!

Music History 68 - Beatles

I love The Beatles. so I decided to take this class for fun after I finished all of my other GE requirements. Now, before I continue to shred Prof. Upton, let me tell you: this class is extremely easy. If you enjoy the Beatles, and you have enough time, take the class. Okay, back to Upton. I would normally enjoy professors like Upton if she was teaching a subject I dreaded, but she isn't, and I don't. She honestly acts like she is 12 years old. She shows up to lecture consistently late. When she shows up, she wastes another 10-15 either trying to figure out how technology works or talking about how the students aren't competent enough to follow a lecture without a slideshow presentation. There's a "10 minute" break halfway through the class, but somehow it tends to be at least 15 minutes long. When we do finally start class, she spends so much time talking about stupid stuff. My personal favorite: we were running late on time, and she didn't want to show us a 2 minute video due to worries that we'd go past 11:50. Immediately after saying we didn't have enough time to watch the video, she remembers something she realized the night before and proceeds to talk about - for 5 minutes - how Yoko Ono has a website now (which other than the fact that she is a huge factor in the break up of the Beatles, has no relevancy to the course). Oh, but Upton wouldn't agree with that statement. To her, a self-proclaimed feminist, Yoko cannot be blamed for the break up. In fact, she gives almost none of the blame to Yoko, which is naive. Okay back to the topic: by the end of the class, we've actually only spent about 1 hr 15 minutes of 'learning' in a class that's 1 hr 50 minutes long. Like I said earlier, I would enjoy Upton as a teacher for stuff I wasn't interested in, but I took this class because I actually wanted to learn stuff about the Beatles. Instead, I heard her babbling and dancing around on stage. I really do believe that Upton holds herself higher than her students on an intellectual level. I don't think she realizes she teaches at UCLA. She spends too much time before a video mentioning things that we could obviously notice on our own (again, a big waste of time). She does know a lot about The Beatles, I'll give her that. However, I mean a lot compared to the average American, but probably an average amount compared to any 'baby boomer' who grew up with them. If I had read the book, which I didn't because it's pointless (I got a 105% on the midterm and a 90 on the paper without reading more than 60 pages), I would know about as much about The Beatles as she does. Elizabeth Upton is an interesting character; she is enthusiastic about the class, and she loves doing it. I'm going to guess she's teaching the class so she can reminisce on the days back when she wanted to be a groupie. That's essentially what she is: a groupie. She's the perfect example of Beatlemania; though it ended over 40 years ago, it's still living within that tiny little brain of hers. For instance, during almost every slide she is incapable of not mentioning "how adorable The Beatles are." If you're like me at all, then you are reading this trying to decide to take the class to satisfy your desire to learn new info on one of the greatest groups of all time. If that's the case, take the class. Do it, but try to take it with a different professor or else you won't learn anything you couldn't have learned on your own by watching the Beatles Anthology.